LAHORE: The treasury and opposition members in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday joined hands in a rare show of solidarity when it came to an increase in their salaries, vigorously thumping desks after a private bill was moved for the purpose.

The Punjab Public Representatives’ Laws (Amendment) Bill 2019 was tabled by PTI’s Ghazanfar Abbas and was immediately referred to the committee concerned for report by Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Mazari. Law Minister Basharat Raja did not oppose it to the delight of the assembly members whose number was perhaps the highest in the current sitting of the assembly.

The bill aims at increasing salaries of the chief minister, ministers, speaker and deputy speaker, chairmen of committees, advisers, special assistants and all members through amendments to different laws, each relating to each category.

House passes some resolutions

The Punjab Assembly members have been demanding an increase in the salary saying their colleagues in other provinces particularly Balochistan are drawing much higher pays and fringe benefits.

The bill seeks an increase in the monthly salary of the speaker from the existing Rs37,000 to Rs200,000, of the deputy speaker from Rs35,000 to Rs 185,000, of the chief minister from Rs39,000 to Rs300,000, of the ministers from Rs35,000 to Rs185,000, of the parliamentary secretaries from Rs20,000 to Rs83,000, of the special assistants form Rs35,000 to Rs185,000, of advisers from Rs30,000 to Rs185,000, and of MPAs from Rs18,000 to Rs 80,000.

The bill also seeks an increase in the amounts of their utility bills, sumptuary allowances, etc. It seeks the upward revision of the annual travelling allowance of the parliamentary secretaries from the existing Rs120,000 to Rs200,000.

The statement of objects and reasons of the bills says: “The emoluments of public representatives of the province of Punjab are not at par with those of the sister provinces and the federal government. Keeping in view the recent spells of price hike and devaluation, it is essential that the emoluments of the public representatives of Punjab are increased to a reasonable extent.”

Earlier, the treasury acknowledged during the question hour that the previous Shahbaz Sharif government had distributed among students over 400,000 laptops on merit. The higher education minister said as many as 414,848 laptops were purchased at the lowest rate. There was no corruption in the purchase of the laptops and they were not purloined in thousands. None of the official concerned had so far been found guilty of any misconduct or corruption.

The minister also agreed with a questioner that the Punjab colleges lacked furniture and clean drinking water and the facilities would be provided in the next fiscal year.

Several resolution by members were defeated by the majority vote of the treasury benches and some others were kept pending.

The house nevertheless passed some resolutions. One moved by PTI’s Syeda Zahra Naqvi sought arrangements of career counselling for students for admission to universities so as to produce the required human resource. MPA Safdar Shakir’s resolution demanded that the federal government provide maximum facilities to the agriculture and industrial sectors.

The resolution of PTI’s Farrah Agha urged the federal government to allocate funds for the revival of hockey in the country and arrange for the direct telecast of national and international matches of the sport so as to promote it.

MPA Munibul Haq’s resolution sought withdrawal of the recent increase in the prices of fertilisers. MPA Sohaib Ahmad Malik’s resolution welcomed the posting of judges in Bhera and urged the Lahore High Court to have a judicial complex and judicial colony constructed in the tehsil.

The house unanimously passed a motion moved by PML-N’s Azma Bukhari seeking the highest military honours for Squadron Leaders Hasan Siddiqui and Nauman Ali for downing Indian warplanes.

The session was adjourned till Wednesday morning (today).

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2019